Free The Kindest Thing by Cath Staincliffe Page B

magistrates refused me bail and remanded me to Styal, I rang home again. The desire to hear their voices, to make sure they were coping, was all-consuming. Sophie
answered the phone.
    ‘Sophie, it’s Mum. Are you all right, darling?’
    There was a pause and then she said in a low, trembly voice, ‘You shouldn’t have done it, Mum.’
    My heart racketed in my chest. I felt the blood drain from my cheeks and the cold steal into my bowels. ‘Sophie, I never meant to hurt—’
    There was a clatter as she let go of the phone. She believed what they were saying. She trusted them, not me. I longed to call her back to the phone, to try and explain. Her censure was
understandable: she’d adored her father and now she thought I had taken him away from her. I felt unsteady, the love and concern I’d anticipated from Sophie snatched away. The chance we
might console each other shattered.
    A few seconds later, Adam came on. ‘Mum?’ He was subdued.
    ‘Adam, I’m sorry for all this. I need you to be strong now, look after yourself.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘You can go to Grandma and Grandpa’s.’
    ‘I’ll stay. Sophie’s going.’
    I’d a mad image of Adam opening up the place for a house party. It’d be great weather for it, tents in the garden and a barbecue, giant spliffs and too much booze.
    ‘Talk to Jane, if you need anything.’
    ‘Cool. Can I come and see you?’
    I couldn’t speak for a moment. Tears burned the back of my eyes. I didn’t want to break down on the phone, didn’t want him to have to cope with that on top of everything else.
‘Yes, please. I’ll find out what we have to do. You’ll need to go shopping – make sure you eat something.’
    ‘Course.’ There was a pause. Then he went on, ‘ Jonty’s going to this festival in Spain – there’s a load of them going. I . . .’ He offered it as
something to talk about, then realized it might seem tactless.
    ‘That sounds great. You thinking of going?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘When is it?’
    ‘Middle of August.’
    ‘Good.’ I’ll still be in here, I thought. Ms Gleason had told me it would be between six months and a year till my trial started. ‘You could take the little
tent.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Well, I’d better go. I love you. I’ll ring you about the visit.’
    ‘Cool.’
    ‘Bye-bye.’ My hand ached from gripping the phone.
    That night as I lay in my bed, Sophie’s words tore through me, again and again. You shouldn’t have done it, Mum.
    The prison isn’t one big building, as I’d imagined. Instead two rows of large red-brick villas slope down avenues lined with oak and lime and beech trees towards the wing at the
bottom. Most women live in the houses, which were built as Victorian orphanages. Nowadays the villas all take their names from venerable women, good role models for us: Brontë, Gaskell,
Pankhurst. Though when I think about it Pankhurst spent quite a bit of time behind bars, being force-fed for her trouble.
    The more dangerous prisoners, those with chronic addiction problems and those in for the most serious offences, live on the wing. Although my charge was up there with the worst, once I had been
assessed and deemed to pose no threat to the other women, I was allocated a room in one of the houses near the bottom of the hill close to the wing.
    The majority of the women ‘pad up’, two or four to a cell, in the houses. When they sent me to Shapley House – this villa is named after a pioneering radio broadcaster who
lived in Manchester – I was put in one of the small single rooms, a privilege, and I was hugely relieved that I didn’t have to put up with someone else’s taste in television night
after night, that I didn’t have to lie awake listening to another woman breathe and dream.
    We share a bathroom, one to each floor, and I can’t get used to sharing with strangers, never time to indulge in a long shower or a hot soak, someone always knocking on the door. I dart in
and out when I have to and